San Carlos officials are balking at a developer’s request for more concessions and a possible refund of fees that have been paid to the city and school districts.

The city and Redwood City-based Matteson Companies have been exchanging letters for the past few months regarding incentives and concessions on the developer’s mixed-use condominium and business project at 1000 El Camino Real.

John Baer, Matteson’s senior vice-president for development, said he is protesting the $1.5 million in park and other fees that the developer has paid to the city and the school districts because the company is building 17 affordable units in its 90-condominium complex. That exceeds the city’s requirement that at least 15 percent of the units in a new development be affordable.

“We don’t believe we have received adequate incentives and concessions,” Baer said.

He said Matteson is entitled to additional incentives and concessions because the affordable units in the complex will cost the developer $4 million to $5 million.

Baer said they are seeking incentives and concessions from the San Carlos School District and the Sequoia Union High School District for the same reason, and that those could include something besides a fee reduction or refund.

Ed LaVigne, Sequoia Union High School District’s assistant superintendent for administrative services, said the developer paid the school districts about $237,000 in impact fees and that Sequoia could not reduce the fees because state laws require it to collect them for both districts.

San Carlos Assistant City ManagerBrian Moura called the situation “ironic” because Baer is a member of the Park and Recreation Foundation of San Carlos, which raises money to fix parks in the city.

“The whole thing is a little unusual,” Moura said. “The whole (request by the developer) is vague and cloudy.”

City officials said they have made several concessions to the developer and that Baer should have asked for more before the development was approved, instead of waiting until construction started.

“The bottom line is we are being told that the city doesn’t have to give them a dime or give them anything,” City Attorney Bob Lanzone said. “We have given them a whole list of things.”

Those concessions listed in an Oct. 24 letter from Oakland-based Goldfarb Lipman Attorneys, the outside legal help the city hired for the matter, include allowing the project to be 10 feet higher than the zoning permits; a reduction in the number of required parking spaces; giving up part of Cowgill Alley; and allowing underground parking to encroach on Morse Boulevard and Laurel Street.

“It would not be fair to give them anything more in the greater scheme of things,” Lanzone said. “It just boggles the mind.”

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